Pride

I got a letter in the mail last week that said PootiePie had been selected to receive her middle school's "Lion's Pride Award" and there would be a ceremony Friday afternoon right before school let out. She didn't say anything to me about it and I didn't say anything to her about it, thinking it would be a surprise for her Friday afternoon when they told her to go to the auditorium instead of Athletics.

They give out this award to a few students from each grade (6th-8th) every 9 weeks. Bugaboo got one in 7th grade and this is actually Pootie's second time to receive one. The first one she got at the end of 6th grade. A teacher nominates them based on the Six Pillars of Character: Respect, Fairness, Responsibility, Trustworthiness, Caring and Citizenship. Pootie thinks she knows who nominated her because that teacher always makes her sit with "the bad kids".

SSB and Bunny and I headed up to the school with camera in tow for the ceremony. As the choir sang a couple songs to open things up, I scanned the seats for Pootie. No sign of her. Because they were sitting in alphabetic order, I found the kid she was supposed to be next to and saw an empty seat with her name taped to it. Shitballs! No one told her about it. I went out to the front desk and told them and they sent a runner to go get her from class, but she didn't come. When the dismissal bell rang the ceremony was still going on so when I saw her come down the hall I dragged her in there and brought her up to the stage. Several students had not been notified so even though most people were leaving, they were still announcing late-comers. Pootie was mortified and very crabby with me, but by God I was going to get a picture of her receiving that certificate if it killed the both of us.

Seems like the person whose job it was to notify the kids that they had won could use a few lessons in responsibility and trustworthiness. And caring. And respect.

It's Finger-Lookin' Good!

I was looking at Pootie's finger over the weekend and was pleasantly surprised to find that the snakebite wound has healed over. Her surgeon had wanted to do a skin graft last week or the week before but there was no opening until July 25th and now I think its too late.

This morning I left a message for him to call me so we could discuss it. I got a call back within an hour, which was another pleasant surprise. A woman transferred me to another woman who asked if she could help me first. I told her what was going on and she said, "Oh. You better talk to him about that."

But then she came back on the phone and said, "OK. We'll cancel the surgery. He does want to see her one more time though" and made us an appointment. Wow. That was easy. I was thinking I'd take her down to see him before the surgery so HE could determine if she still needed it or not, but its fine with me.

What do you think?

I Look and I Sound Like the Letter $$$$$$$$$$

Update on the snake bite drama.

Pootie has most of her range of motion back in her finger. It doesn't straighten all the way or bend all the way when making a fist, but the hand surgeon is pleased with what she CAN do even though it is still somewhat numb. He said it probably damaged some of her nerves but he didn't say if she'll regain any sensation or not. However, her wound where the little sucker actually bit her has not healed up on its own enough and she is scheduled for outpatient surgery to have a skin graft on July 25. Luckily, not TOO much tendon is showing and he doesn't have to do the cross-finger flap he thought he might have to do and it will just be a regular skin graft, probably taking the skin from somewhere on her thigh or hip.

In related news we got another statement from the insurance company. Children's Medical Center charged Cigna $189,926.50 just for the ER and inpatient part of her hospital stay (doesn't include doctor charges, ambulance, etc.). $99,999.00 of that was just for the Cro-Fab (anti-venin). If you read my original post about this, you'll know that I took home the information sheet that the ER sent up to the nurses on the floor about it and one of the things it said was that each vial of Cro-Fab costs the hospital $900 and I wondered how much they were going to charge the insurance company. My answer is $3333.33 if she got 30 vials. (I lost track and know she got between 24 and 30 vials but for math purposes we'll say it was 30.) Cigna only allowed for about $58,000, meaning they paid about $1900 a vial. Quite a profit for the hospital.

E-Care charged my credit card $100 the night it happened and I don't know how much they charged the insurance company but another $250 was automatically paid out of our flexible spending account (cafeteria plan). I don't know what they could charge for though because all that place did was call an ambulance. That is ALL they did. The ambulance took her from E-Care to the local hospital 7.7 miles away (even though that hospital wasn't equipped to do anything about her injury) and we just got a bill for $485.00 for that pointless ride. That's almost $63 a mile. It's crazy.

$tay away from $nakes!

Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny

For those of you who don't personally know us, let me describe Pootiepie for you before I start this story. She is 13 and just starting to grow out of being a tomboy, at least on the outside. Inside she's pretty much the same. She's either 5'1" or 5'2" and barely weighs 80 pounds. She looks like a newborn colt, all legs. Her legs are so stick skinny they don't look like they should be able to hold her up. The only big thing on her are her feet. She currently wears a women size 8.5 shoe and counting. They look like flippers attached to the skinniest ankles you can imagine and her thighs aren't much bigger.

Swimsuit season is upon us and we, the adults of the family, decided it was time for her to get a new one. She doesn't have a lot that needs to be covered (picture Olive Oyl in a bikini) but after 2 or 3 summers in use, her suit was ready for retirement. Besides. It was a size 7/8. 7/8 like what first and second graders typically wear. It still fit her and she wasn't hanging out of it anywhere but we insisted.

Even though she is a teenager and going into 8th grade I knew that nothing that is supposed to fit her would fit her. I thought size 10/12 should work though. I went shopping one day and took pictures of different suits I thought were cute and sent them to Bugaboo's phone at home for Pootie to see and choose one. She chose a red and white striped two piece but when I went back for it, the ONE that was size 10/12 wasn't there anymore. Shitballs. I left without buying anything and figured she could go back some other time to see if they got more or go to a different store to look.

A couple days later Bugaboo took Pootie shopping. I knew it would be a painful experience because Pootie is very critical of everything that isn't just perfect and gets mean about it and I was glad to not have to go. They came back a couple hours later and Pootie triumphantly held up her purchase. She liked the color, the style and the fit. I was happy. She was happy. Bugaboo was happy to have made it home alive. All seemed well.

Until she tried it on for me. It still seemed quite small. She yelled, "Its a size 10/12 just like you said to get!!" I looked at the hanger. Yep. 10/12. I looked at the tags. Um. Not quite 10/12. It was size 6x. Like what kindergarteners wear.

She had already taken the tags off and that protective lining in the bottoms and argued that her old one just probably shrunk and this one will be fine. She'll NEVER put it in the dryer, she promised. OK. Whatever. As long as I don't have to take her shopping for another one. This one will probably last her until she can drive anyway and she can go by herself.

Scabba Dabba Doo

Ugh. The following is not for the faint of heart.

Pootie casually announced that her snakebite scab came off today. We've had follow-up visits with the plastic surgeon every two weeks since she got bit and every time he just says, "We may have to do a skin graft. Lets wait to see what under that black scab."

You, the blogging community, get a first look, even before he does because she deosn't go back to him until July 1st.



Yeah. I'm thinking a skin graft is in her future. That's quite a chunk.

Once Bitten Twice Shy, Babe

Last Wednesday at about 8:30 p.m. AristMommy, Bugaboo and I were sitting in the front yard watching the kids play when all of a sudden we heard Pootie Pie scream and start then yelling. “Get me out of here! Get me out!” ArtistMommy jumped up and started running then Bugaboo sprinted past her. I grabbed Bunny and waited, a bit bewildered. Was this really something that warranted all this? ArtistMommy and her husband (where did he come from?) were guiding a hysterical Pootie to the house. She was crying and repeated, “A snake! A snake bit me! In the sewer! A snake!” BeeMan fell off of the skateboard and it shot down the street and into the storm drain along the curb. Pootie shimmied down in there like she had done dozens of times before to retrieve it.

We brought her to the faucet to rinse her left hand and look for bite marks. After rinsing the blood we only saw one mark on her ring finger but then a second pinprick point of blood came up so we knew it had been fangs. I had no idea what to do. How do you know if it was a venomous snake or not? What do I do? I didn’t have to think; ArtistMommy did it for me and told me to take her in. I squeezed her wrist really hard. Isn’t that what cowboys do to keep the venom from going up into their heart? Then they slice it open and suck the poison out (don’t forget to spit then, not swallow). She screamed, “Mommy it hurts!” I said I know. She said, “No! You’re squeezing me too tight!” Oh, sorry.

On the way to E-Care about a mile away Pootie started crying and asking if she was going to die. “Mommy, just tell me the truth!” I told her no because we were on the way to get help. She wasn’t lying out in the desert somewhere all alone without medical attention. She calmed down a little, but the pain kept her very upset.

After E-Care took Pootie’s vitals, which were fine and normal and our insurance info and credit card, someone came in and said they weren’t equipped to handle snake bites so they were calling an ambulance to take her to a hospital ER.

The ambulance came for her at about 9:15 and I followed in the car and was standing outside of it as they unloaded her. Inside the ER they were waiting for her and put us in a room. They took her vitals and our insurance and credit card information and then told us they aren’t equipped to handle snake bites. What? I was upset but didn’t really have it in me to throw any kind of fit. What would that get me anyway? If they don’t have anti-venin, they don’t have it. I think the ambulance service should know who has it and who doesn’t though and not waste anyone’s time like that.

By now Pootie’s finger was black and her hand was swollen like a club. Her wrist was blowing up too and it hurt all the way up into her armpit. They gave her some morphine and some Zofran (anti-nausea) at 9:40 while we waited for the next ambulance to come from Children’s Medical Center of Dallas about 30 miles away. They got there at about 10:15 p.m. and I assured her I’d be at the hospital as soon as possible and went home to pick up a bag Bugaboo and Dupree had very thoughtfully packed for us. Even if I had gone straight there I wouldn’t have been able to keep up because they took off with lights and sirens.

See that peace sign she drew on her fingernail? I think it served as a target. I keep telling all of them to stop writing on themselves. Maybe they'll listen now. (Ha.)

Later I talked to the ambulance driver, and I think she got to Children’s at about 10:45 but I didn’t get there until 11:35. He also told me she would have been air lifted but the helicopter was down for annual maintenance that night. Dang it. That would have been awesome.

A nurse came in and updated me. It takes one hour for the anti-venin CroFab to be ready once the pharmacy mixes it up and she was due to have it at about 12:15. They would give her 6 vials of an initial dose and then 2 more vials every 6 hours as a maintenance. Up to 6 extra vials could be given after the initial 6 if that didn’t seem to stop the symptoms. She had gotten another dose of morphine and Zofran but was still in a lot of pain. It hadn’t helped even a little. Plus now she had been vomiting. One doctor said it was from the morphine but another said it was from the venom. Whatever. She finally got some Vicodin and that helped ease the pain a little, although throughout this whole ordeal she was never pain-free and she has a very high pain tolerance. When she was in first grade she broke both the bones in her forearm and never cried.

They said they were going to admit her. One resident, with a meaningful look, told me they were going to send her to ICU because she was real sick. But another jumped in and said they didn’t have any other beds to send her to anyway. I didn’t know who was more right but it scared me. The pain and swelling hadn’t stopped and was going further and further up her arm. It was a very uncomfortable night in a very hard chair next to her bed with neither one of us getting much sleep. It seemed like she was some kind of celebrity because residents, medical students, paramedics and nurses that had nothing to do with her care kept coming in to ask if they could look at her hand because they had never seen a snake bite before. Plus they were pumping her full of IV fluids and the only bathroom was down the hall. She had to pee every couple hours and it was a big ordeal with a useless hand with a rotten finger.

At 6 a.m. Thursday the swelling and pain stopped progressing up her arm at about her bicep area, this was after 12 vials of CroFab. We were moved into the ER Annex, a kind of a holding area while waiting for a regular room upstairs to open up.

Bugaboo and Dupree showed up around 10 a.m. and Pootie’s eyes lit up when she saw her sister. She perked up and seemed OK for the first time. It was very good to see.

They finally moved us to a regular room upstairs at about 2 p.m. She had been seen by so many doctors, residents and medical students I couldn’t keep them all straight.

SSB flew home early and got to the hospital about at about 5 p.m. with Snickety and Taz. BeeMan had fallen asleep after school so Dupree stayed with him. Taz was very attentive and tried to help her in any way possible. That night my cousin called. I hadn’t spoken to him since I saw him at a family reunion a few years ago so it was very sweet of him to call and check on us. Pootie wondered why he called and why everyone was being so nice and concerned and calling. I told her because she could have died and she started to cry. “I didn’t know I could have died! You told me I wasn’t going to die!” Yes I did and she didn’t die did she? So then she asked “Well I didn’t die so why are people still so interested?” I told her because a lot of things still could have happened, like she could have lost her finger or several other things but none of that was going to happen now because she was getting better. She just cried more. “I didn’t know that!” Well. It’s good she didn’t know that then.

After being seen by a couple specialists they all decided we could go home Friday afternoon after she got a tetanus shot. She ended up getting somewhere between 24 and 30 doses of CroFab. The information sheet that was in the room said it costs the hospital $900 per vial. I wonder how much they charge the patient/insurance company???

We don’t know yet if there will be any damage or scarring. We have follow up appointments next week.

Lesson #1 – Stay out of the sewer and drains.

Lesson #2 - If any of the other kids get bit by a snake I will not waste my time with E-Care, local hospitals or even 911. I will just drive straight to Dallas and save myself a few hours.

All Thumbs

Snickety is one of the sweetest kids anyone will ever meet. When he was 6 one night I noticed that my hands smelled like garlic. I hadn’t made anything for dinner that had any garlic in it so it was a mystery. I washed them and slathered on some VERY smelly lilac lotion. Everyone was almost gagging because I smelled of lilac so much.

But after an hour or two it wore off, at least on my thumb. My thumb again smelled of garlic. Or battery acid. Or rat poison. I had received differing opinions when I asked each person what they thought it smelled like. Right before bed I asked Snick what he thought. He said he thought it stunk, but didn’t know what of. I let it go at that and he went and brushed his teeth and put on his pajamas. later he came out and gave me a hug and kiss goodnight and said, "If I had a four-leaf clover, I would wish that your thumb would never smell like that again." How sweet and selfless!

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Pootiepie was, and still pretty much is, a tomboy. When she was about 2 she wouldn't wear anything but jeans. Then it progressed to no girl shirts or shoes or anything at all girly. Everything had to come from the boys' department and even then it had to be JUST RIGHT. At the end of Kindergarten I even relented and let her get her hair cut BOY SHORT, like with a mountain top in front. She loved it.

About a month before she turned 4 I was sitting in the glider rocker and she came and sat on the stool in front of me. She was very serious about something. Her eyes were as big as the moon. She looked straight at me and asked, "Do you want to know how to be a man?"

"Sure," I said.

"OK" she instructed. "Do this." Then she stuck her thumb in her mouth, pulled it out with a POP! and wiped it across her forehead making a cowlick in her hair. I copied her.

"Do this" she said again and the thumb went back in her mouth, out with a pop, and wiped it down her shin.

We did the same thing to the other leg. I was a little freaked out because she wasn't giggling or being silly or anything. She meant business. Where had she learned such a ritual?

"OK. Now do this" she said as the thumb went in her mouth. It came out with a pop and she made a squinched-up icky face.

When I followed her lead and did the same she said, "Does yours taste yucky too?"

I'm guessing she wiped a bunch of dirt off her legs with that thumb then tasted it. Ew. I said no.

This went on a few more times wiping our wet thumbs across our foreheads again (but NOT in our hair!) across one cheek and then the other. Then she just sat there and stared at me.

Finally she said, "There. You're done" and left.

She was so intense and serious I was just a tiny bit afraid to check my drawers. I never figured out how this all came about in her little head or if she really believed it or not. I'm glad it didn't work on either one of us, but she may still be a bit disappointed. Especially now that she has to shave her legs.

Does a Bear Poop in the Woods?

Yesterday while driving Pootie to track practice at 6:45 a.m. she was unusually talkative. Almost manic. She does this when she is feeling guilty or upset. Most of her ranting was about a fort out in the "woods" next to our house. (The kids call it the forest but its just a strip of trees between our neighborhood and the private property next to us.) She and Taz had gone out to their friend's fort with him and were having a good time until Taz decided to take a leak right then and there.

Now. I know males of all ages pee outside from time to time. They can, so they do. And they love it. In fact, just a couple weeks ago I walked out the front door and saw BeeMan hydrating the rock wall between our house and the neighbors' and laughing his little head off. Its kinda gross but I don't really care that he did it, just that he did it in the front yard next to the driveway. You know, where the street is and all the people in cars passing by.

I can easily forgive a just-turned-six-year-old for doing it once in the front yard and I could probably forgive a 13 year old for doing it in woods if he had the sense to move away from his sister and friend and keep his junk hidden. But as it was, Pootie caught an eyeful and seemed a little unsettled by it, as evidenced by the constant blabbering.

"Look at that sign" she said in the car. "It looks like an optical illusion. Back there it looked like it was curving back, but now up here it looks like its curving toward us. I don't even know why I looked."

"At the street sign?"

"No. Last night. At IT. I thought he was squirting a water bottle and I looked up."

When Taz got home I told him to come home when he has to pee. Its NOT far. His answer, which I could have said along with him for I knew what was coming, was "But I had to go really bad." I told him to go before he leaves the house then and left it at that.

Less than three hours later Taz and Pootie were back at the fort and this time they had Snick with them. This was a thorn in my side anyway because they hadn't finished their chores and getting their stuff done on time has been an ongoing battle so I met them on the sidewalk with all kinds of admonishments. To my surprise I didn't get much resistance. I should have known something was up. I should have recognized their relief at being in trouble for leaving and not for anything they did while gone. But I didn't.

I was only caught up to speed later at bedtime by a, once again, prattling Pootie Pie. Just out of the blue she blurts out, "We had to go poop really bad in the woods."

"WHAT?? You went POOP in the WOODS??"

"Yeah. I had to go really bad."

"How did you wipe your butt?"

"I didn't. But I took a shower."

Can you picture me at this point? Try.

Actually I had a pretty exhausting day because of Bunny's constant whining and use of the word no and so by the time I learned this bit of news I was done for. I just sat. Sat and stared. No yelling. No flailing about. Pootie isn't used to this apparently, so just kept blabbing.

"Well. At least I didn't use my undershirt to wipe and then just leave it there like Snickety did!"

"He pooped in the woods too?"

"Yeah."

Ah. That's where the "we" came from. Of course.

Now I am just a deflated blob. A mommy puddle. So she didn't stop there. She had one more thing to add as I melted away.

"And Taz thought he'd get in a whole lot of trouble 'cuz he peed again. But he had to go really bad!"

Nocturnalness

At dinner the other night PootiePie said that BeeMan doesn't want to share a room with her anymore. I asked BeeMan why he wanted to change and he said because of PootiePie's gerbil. He nibbles on everything and rumbles around all night. He has eaten his houses and bowls and anything he can pull into the cage, like BeeMan's underwear. He's a biter and he is not greatly loved. And while not doing anything to promote it, Pootie is patiently awaiting his demise so she can get a guinea pig instead. In the meantime she diligently feeds him and gives him water and buys him new houses and plays with him as much as she can stand to be bitten.

Although she doesn't like him either, Pootie took offense to the extreme of Beeman's disdain. More likely she was offended just by the fact that he wanted to move out away from her more than his reason behind it. If anyone should want to move out it should be her because she really does have the short end of the stick. He hardly ever helps her clean up in there and he snores like a Harley (but he doesn't believe us when we tell him). She said, "It's not like you can't sleep. I go to bed a half hour after you do and you're always asleep. I'M the one who has to put up with the gerbil AND you snoring!!

To which Bee replied, "The gerbil snores?"